The air of doubt that had been pervasive on his face disappeared, replaced by a slight glimmer of hope.

“If you help me, I will repay you with Raven’s entire life. I will do a lot of good things.”

Though I put my heart into expressing my sincerity, it seemed to have the opposite effect.

Raven’s cheeks flushed with anger, then quickly turned as red as a tomato all the way to his ears.

“You… don’t say such things so lightly. You can’t use that as a kid.”

Wondering what he meant, I tilted my head, then realized that Raven was not angry but embarrassed.

What I had said might sound like a proposal to someone else.

‘Ugh, is there a mouse hole somewhere…’

I felt sorry for dragging him to such a place, and I intended to promise a significant reward for helping with the magic depletion.

But with my limited language, it seemed to spark a misunderstanding rather than a misunderstanding.

“Sniff sniff. I understand. Trust me. Okay?”

“You want me to risk my life just trusting a kid’s eloquence?”

“If I break my promise, tell the spirit. It’s my weakness.”

“I don’t understand why being able to command a spirit is considered a weakness.”

“I don’t understand that either.”

Exhausted from speaking, I shrugged my shoulders, and Raven burst into a delightful laugh.

I didn’t know exactly why, but I felt that his guard against me had melted away like snow.

“I have to go now. If they find out I’ve been carrying you, I’ll get in trouble.”

“Alright. Take care. And take your friend Butterfly well.”

“It’s not a butterfly, it’s a spirit!!”

Ignoring the spirit’s sharp cry, I left Raven’s room.

As the light wrapped around me, I thought the boy left alone in the darkness looked particularly lonely.

But that scene soon disappeared beyond the warping space.

(This is a time separator.)

The next afternoon, at the Repel family’s mansion.

After finishing his outside appointments and returning to his office, Charlotte loosened the cravat tied around his neck and slumped at his desk.

‘There’s too much going on lately. I’m starting to feel worn out.’

From the various reports from different parts of the kingdom on land management, to the midyear performance reports of the businesses run by the Repel family.

There were piles of documents that needed to be reviewed within a few days, but with the recent increase in external work, there was hardly time to leisurely look through them.
Usually, it was the women who managed the family, and the men who helped them in the vampire aristocratic society, but in the case of Charlotte, who had a lord as her husband, she had to endure everything alone.

Of course, it was her choice for the prosperity of the family, but there were often times when she regretted not choosing a spouse other than Vlady.

‘Once Wilhelm settles in, I’ll be able to reduce this burden a little.’

The eldest son of the Tzepes family, which had produced lords for generations, and the Lepel family, the most prestigious in the kingdom.

When her son, Wilhelm, was born, she was certain that this child would become the new lord.

And she even thought that perhaps this child might change the name of the Tzepes Kingdom to Lepel.

Originally, the vampire kingdom had no fixed name, and it was decided by the surname of the family that the next generation’s lord wanted to follow, so it was not impossible.

‘I have to put that child in the lord’s position no matter what.’

In her girlhood, Charlotte had discovered a record in an old document she happened to read that, long ago, the actual name of their kingdom was not Tzepes but another family.

Once she had dreamt of becoming a lord, but as a young girl with no potential for that, she had since dreamed.

She harbored the ambition to become the head of the Lepel family and give birth to a successor with the qualities of a lord.

Charlotte, who was recognized as a promising talent, became the head of the Lepel family as soon as she reached adulthood, having beaten all her competitors within the family, and accepted a strategic marriage with Vlady through many calculations.

She had dedicated her life solely to the glory of her family and to realize the sweet dream she had dreamt in her childhood.

Because she focused solely on her work without considering emotions, she had little interaction with her child Wilhelm, and her relationship with Vlady, her husband on paper, was almost military, but she was somewhat satisfied with the current situation.

Until Bella Akkad Tzepes, the youngest daughter of the Lord’s family, born to Vlady and his companion, appeared.

“……I never thought he would call that little girl to the banquet hall.”

It was already widely known that the lord hated his only daughter.

Since everyone in the kingdom knew how passionate Vlady’s love for his companion, Daphne, had been, the atmosphere was reluctant to even mention his daughter, who was rumored to be the reason for losing her.

So she didn’t take much caution when she heard that Bella had woken up, but seeing that Vlady had not only named her but also brought her to the official banquet hall, it seemed she would have to change her mind from now on.

“Hoo, my head hurts.”

What was fortunate, at least, was that the secret crime of her halfbrother, who had hired assassins to cut off Bella’s lifeline in his own way, had not been discovered.

It had been more than two weeks since Vlady and the Knights returned from the expedition, and the fact that she had not been summoned during that time meant that no information related to the Lepel family had been found.

Furthermore, since the closure of Rose Palace was still ongoing, unlike her concerns, she didn’t know if there were plans to showcase Bella in earnest.

At the moment when Charlotte, who had adjusted her delicate women’s cravat, was about to turn her eyes to the stack of papers on her desk, a knock sounded at the door.

“Head of the family, Elder Chairman Galileo has come to see you.”